For the first time in 20 months, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have agreed to resume direct negotiations, scheduled for Sept. 2 in Washington, to talk about such thorny things as Israeli settlement activity, the borders of a future Palestinian state, and the right of Palestinian exiles to return to their homeland.

Sen. Chuck Schumer’s words about Gaza, delivered Wednesday at an Orthodox Union event, were coming back to haunt him via the Interweb on Friday, as video of Schumer declaring that it might be a good idea to ... (continued)

On Tuesday, the third day of new peace talks between Palestinian and Israeli leaders, President Barack Obama had a phone chat (so retro!) with Palestinian Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in which he voiced his support for the two-state solution ... (continued)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is allegedly trying to sabotage the possibility of a two-state solution in the Middle East by insisting that Israel would continue to maintain a military presence along the borders of any future Palestinian state.

While the cameras rolled, President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu huddled at the White House on Monday and waxed diplomatic about the usual lineup of regional concerns: Israeli-Palestinian relations, Iran and the possibility of peace in the Middle East.

Israel has always believed in “creating facts on the ground,” whose existence may later come as an unpleasant surprise to others. Iran now seems to have learned from this Israeli precedent, to Israel’s disadvantage.

Israel’s new super-duper-ultranationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday dismissed a 2007 agreement with Palestinian officials aimed at discussing the creation of a Palestinian state. Lieberman claims the agreement, made in Annapolis, Md., has “no validity.”